9 Things I Did After Installing Brand New Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat"

The final release of Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat is here with a ton of improvements. I think, it's time to stop talking about the great strides Ubuntu 10.10 has made on the usability fronts and lets just concentrate on the things you need to do and you could do with the new Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

Update Repositories

Every time you install a brand new Ubuntu, the first thing you need to do is to update repositories and make sure you have the latest updates installed.

Goto System - Administration - Synaptic Package Manager and hit 'Reload' button OR simply do the following in Terminal.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Done.

Install Ubuntu Restricted Extras

Install the "ubuntu-restricted-extras" package. This will enable your Ubuntu to play popular file formats like mp3, avi etc. Click Here or use the command below to install the package.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Done

Enable Full DVD Playback Including Dual Layer DVD's

Though installing the restricted extras package will solve most of your problems, you may not be able to play dual layer dvds yet in your Ubuntu.

For that, you need to install libdvdcss2 package from medibuntu repositories. Simply do the following in Terminal.

In my case, all the hardware drivers including graphics and wireless drivers were enabled automatically. But this may not be the case with everyone.

If you are on the other side, simply goto System - Administration - Hardware Drivers and check whether if there are any drivers available and activate the ones you want. In 90% of the cases, this will do the trick. Those who were not able to get their hardware drivers enabled yet will have to do fair amount of digging through ubuntuforums.

Install Compiz Config Settings Manager

Compiz desktop effects are available in your Ubuntu by default and if you have any kind of 3D acceleration available(graphics driver ie), you are good to go with Compiz.

Now to tweak compiz the way you want, Install "compizconfig-settings-manager". Click here or do the following in Terminal to install "compizconfig-settings-manager".

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Done. Goto System - Preferences - CompizConfig Settings Manager.

Ubuntu 10.10 Deserves Some Theming

If you have been a reader of this blog for sometime, you probably would have guessed it already. Equinox GTK Theme + Faenza Icon Theme is still my favorite Ubuntu theme combination. Install it once and you will feel the same, I assure.

Some of the applications that I regularly use in Ubuntu are not available by default. And all of them are available in the default Ubuntu 10.10 repo. If you want to install the bleeding edge versions of the apps, follow the respective links.